August 2010 Nonfiction

Philosophy and Pychology

How Pleasure Works: the new science of why we like what we like

Some teenage girls enjoy cutting themselves with razors. The average American spends more than four hours a day watching television. The thought of sex with a virgin is intensely arousing to many men. Abstract art can sell for millions of dollars. Young children enjoy playing with imaginary friends and can be comforted by security blankets. People slow their cars to look at gory accidents, and go to movies that make them cry. In this fascinating and witty account, Paul Bloom examines the science behind these curious desires, attractions, and tastes, covering everything from the animal instincts of sex and food to the uniquely human taste for art, music, and stories. Drawing on insights from child development, philosophy, neuroscience, and behavioral economics, How Pleasure Works shows how certain universal habits of the human mind explain what we like and why we like it.

It’s Not That I’m Bitter–,or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying About Visible Panty Lines and Conquered the World

In a world where eye cream is made from placenta, Gina Barreca is the lone voice calling out “But wait, whose placenta is it?” In this collection of deliciously quotable essays, Gina asks the big questions: Why is there no King Charming? Why does no bra ever fit? Why do people say “cougar” like it’s a bad thing? Why do we call it a glass ceiling when it’s just a thick layer of men? Barreca packs a hilarious punch while gleefully rejecting emotional torture, embracing limitless laughter, and showing women how they can conquer the world with good friends(“It’s not that diamonds are a girl’s best friend, but a girl’s best friendsarediamonds”), sharp wit, great shoes, and not a single worry about VPLs.

Religion

God is Not One: the eight rival religions that run the world–and why their differences matter

Crazy for God: how I grew up as one of the elect, helped found the Religious Right, and lived to take it all (or almost all) of it back

By the time he was nineteen, Frank Schaeffer’s parents, Francis and Edith Schaeffer, had achieved global fame as bestselling evangelical authors and speakers, and Frank had joined his father on the evangelical circuit. He would go on to speak before thousands in arenas around America, publish his own evangelical bestseller, and work with such figures as Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, and Dr. James Dobson. But all the while Schaeffer felt increasingly alienated, precipitating a crisis of faith that would ultimately lead to his departure, even if it meant losing everything. With honesty, empathy, and humor, Schaeffer delivers “a brave and important book” (Andre Dubus III, author of House of Sand and Fog), both a fascinating insider’s look at the American evangelical movement and a deeply affecting personal odyssey of faith.

Every Other Monday: twenty years of life, lunch, faith and friendship

Where do you go when the water rises? For more than twenty years, John Kasich has sought the answer to this question and many of life’s most fundamental challenges in an unlikely place: his twice-a-month lunches with an irreverent, thoughtful, and spirited circle of guys who are members of a Bible study group. Every other Monday over lunch at an Italian restaurant in Columbus, Ohio, Kasich and half a dozen friends use the stories of the Good Book as a launching pad to ask questions running the gamut from “Does God exist?” to “What do you do if faith fails you?” This group, in reaching for life’s biggest mysteries while standing firmly rooted in the everyday, has become a cornerstone of Kasich’s life, one to which he consistently turns when the waters threaten to rise. Every Other Monday is an honest look at how to build faith and find solace, even during the most heartbreaking circumstances, and offers a template for reconsidering how we make everyday choices as well as life-changing decisions. Along with rousing personal anecdotes and poignant memories, Kasich shares some of the group’s frank discussions on the major themes found in the Bible and in our daily lives, such as: Charity – How do you determine whether you’re giving enough (i.e., the fatted calf vs. the skinny calf) and why does it matter? Justice – How do you deal with frustration when justice doesn’t always happen here on earth? Envy – How do you absorb the inevitable disappointment when someone else gets the good fortune that you know was meant for you? Giveness – What do you do when you encounter hurtful behavior? Ambition – How do you balance the demands of work and the material world while still growing spiritually? Every Other Monday is a refreshing and forthright account of one group’s search for answers and meaning. From rebuilding trust to understanding why we sometimes fail in matters of morality even when we know better, it lays out a practical path for finding strength and resilience through faith and friendship.

Nine Lives: in search of the sacred in modern India

From the author of The Last Mughal (“A compulsively readable masterpiece” –The New York Review of Books), an exquisite, mesmerizing book that illuminates the remarkable ways in which traditional forms of religious life in India have been transformed in the vortex of the region’s rapid change–a book that distills the author’s twenty-five years of travel in India, taking us deep into ways of life that we might otherwise never have known exist. A Buddhist monk takes up arms to resist the Chinese invasion of Tibet–and spends the rest of his life atoning for the violence by hand printing the finest prayer flags in India . . . A Jain nun tests her powers of detachment as she watches her closest friend ritually starve herself to death . . . A woman leaves her middle-class life in Calcutta and finds unexpected fulfillment living as a Tantric in an isolated, skull-filled cremation ground . . . A prison warder from Kerala is worshipped as an incarnate deity for three months of every year . . . An idol carver, the twenty-third in a long line of sculptors, must reconcile himself to his son’s desire to study computer engineering . . . An illiterate goatherd from Rajasthan keeps alive in his memory an ancient four-thousand-stanza sacred epic . . . A temple prostitute, who initially resisted her own initiation into sex work, pushes both her daughters into a trade she nonetheless regards as a sacred calling. William Dalrymple chronicles these lives with expansive insight and a spellbinding evocation of circumstance. And while the stories reveal the vigorous resilience of individuals in the face of the relentless onslaught of modernity, they reveal as well the continuity of ancient traditions that endure to this day. A dazzling travelogue of both place and spirit.

Social Sciences

Hamlet’s Blackberry: a practical philosophy for building a good life in the digital age

A crisp, passionately argued answer to the question that everyone who’s grown dependent on digital devices is asking: “Where’s the rest of my life?” At a time when we’re all trying to make sense of our relentlessly connected lives, this revelatory book presents a bold new approach to the digital age. Part intellectual journey, part memoir, Hamlet’s BlackBerry sets out to solve what William Powers calls the conundrum of connectedness. Our computers and mobile devices do wonderful things for us. But they also impose an enormous burden, making it harder for us to focus, do our best work, build strong relationships, and find the depth and fulfillment we crave. Hamlet’s BlackBerry argues that we need a new way of thinking, an everyday philosophy for life with screens. To find it, Powers reaches into the past, uncovering a rich trove of ideas that have helped people manage and enjoy their connected lives for thousands of years. New technologies have always brought the mix of excitement and stress that we feel today. Drawing on some of history’s most brilliant thinkers, from Plato to Shakespeare to Thoreau, he shows that digital connectedness serves us best when it’s balanced by its opposite, disconnectedness.Using his own life as laboratory and object lesson, Powers demonstrates why this is the moment to revisit our relationship to screens and mobile technologies, and how profound the rewards of doing so can be. Lively, original, and entertaining, Hamlet’s BlackBerry will challenge you to rethink your digital life.

Nomad: from Islam to America–a personal journey through the clash of civilizations

“This woman is a major hero of our time.” – Richard Dawkins. Ayaan Hirsi Ali captured the world’s attention with Infidel, her compelling coming-of-age memoir, which spent thirty-one weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. Now, in Nomad, Hirsi Ali tells of coming to America to build a new life, an ocean away from the death threats made to her by European Islamists, the strife she witnessed, and the inner conflict she suffered. It is the story of her physical journey to freedom and, more crucially, her emotional journey to freedom – her transition from a tribal mind-set that restricts women’s every thought and action to a life as a free and equal citizen in an open society. Through stories of the challenges she has faced, she shows the difficulty of reconciling the contradictions of Islam with Western values. In these pages Hirsi Ali recounts the many turns her life took after she broke with her family, and how she struggled to throw off restrictive superstitions and misconceptions that initially hobbled her ability to assimilate into Western society. She writes movingly of her reconciliation, on his deathbed, with her devout father, who had disowned her when she renounced Islam after 9/11, as well as with her mother and cousins in Somalia and in Europe. Nomad is a portrait of a family torn apart by the clash of civilizations. But it is also a touching, uplifting, and often funny account of one woman’s discovery of today’s America. While Hirsi Ali loves much of what she encounters, she fears we are repeating the European mistake of underestimating radical Islam. She calls on key institutions of the West – including universities, the feminist movement, and the Christian churches – to enact specific, innovative remedies that would help other Muslim immigrants to overcome the challenges she has experienced and to resist the fatal allure of fundamentalism and terrorism. This is Hirsi Ali’s intellectual coming-of-age, a memoir that conveys her philosophy as well as her experiences, and that also conveys an urgent message and mission – to inform the West of the extent of the threat from Islam, both from outside and from within our open societies. A celebration of free speech and democracy, Nomad is an important contribution to the history of ideas, but above all a rousing call to action.

The Bucolic Plague: how two Manhattanites became gentlemen farmers: an unconventional memoir

Tart and sweet, touching and laugh-out-loud funny, “The Bucolic Plague I shows what happens when two middle-aged New Yorkers (one, an ex-drag queen) do the unthinkable: start over, have a herd of kids (the four-legged kind), and get a little dirty.

Over the Cliff: how Obama’s election drove the American right insane

Compiling example after example, the editors of Crooks and Liars, anbsp;popular blog,nbsp;examine the torrent of right-wing kookery-the eager willingness of conservatives to fervently believe things that are provably false-and its ramifications both for our national discourse and our national well-being. The authors show how this outlandish, overheated rhetoric-generated by mainstream-media figures like Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and Lou Dobbs-is accompanied by a wave of lethal right-wing violence and threatening behavior. The book explores the main drivers of this descent into madness: the extremist Radical Right and the longtime Republican willingness-dating back to Nixon, but refined in more recent years by Lee Atwater and his acolytes-to engage in a divisive politics of resentment, both racial and cultural. The authors also examine ways ordinary Americans can stop the madness.

Reset: Iran, Turkey and America’s future

The bestselling author of “Overthrow” offers a new and surprising vision for rebuilding America’s strategic partnerships in the Middle East.

The Great Reset: how new ways of living and working drive post-crash prosperity

The Cheapskate Next Door: the surprising secrets of Americans living below their means

He’s at it again, but this time he’s not alone. America’s Ultimate Cheapskate is back with all-new secrets for how to live happily below your means, la cheapskate. For The Cheapskate Next Door, Jeff Yeager hit the road to interview and survey hundreds of fellow cheapskates, getting them to divulge their secretes for living the good life on less.

Twelve by Twelve: a one room cabin off the grid and beyond the American dream

“Award-winning writer and lifelong fisherman Paul Greenberg takes us on a culinary journey, exploring the history of the fish that dominate our menus — salmon, sea bass, cod, and tuna — and investigating where eah stands at this critical moment in time.” — Dust jacket.

The Facebook Effect: the inside story of the company that is connecting the world

IN LITTLE MORE THAN HALF A DECADE,Facebook has gone from a dorm-room novelty to a company with 500 million users. It is one of the fastest growing companies in history, an essential part of the social life not only of teenagers but hundreds of millions of adults worldwide. As Facebook spreads around the globe, it creates surprising effects—even becoming instrumental in political protests from Colombia to Iran.Veteran technology reporter David Kirkpatrick had the full cooperation of Facebook’s key executives in researching this fascinating history of the company and its impact on our lives. Kirkpatrick tells us how Facebook was created, why it has flourished, and where it is going next. He chronicles its successes and missteps, and gives readers the most complete assessment anywhere of founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the central figure in the company’s remarkable ascent. This is the Facebook story that can be found nowhere else.How did a nineteen-year-old Harvard student create a company that has transformed the Internet and how did he grow it to its current enormous size? Kirkpatrick shows how Zuckerberg steadfastly refused to compromise his vision, insistently focusing on growth over profits and preaching that Facebook must dominate (his word) communication on the Internet. In the process, he and a small group of key executives have created a company that has changed social life in the United States and elsewhere, a company that has become a ubiquitous presence in marketing, altering politics, business, and even our sense of our own identity. This is the Facebook Effect.

Bill Clegg had a thriving business as a literary agent, a supportive partner, trusting colleagues, and loving friends when he walked away from his world and embarked on a two-month crack binge. He had been released from rehab nine months earlier, and his relapse would cost him his home, his money, his career, and very nearly his life. What is it that leads an exceptional young mind want to disappear? Clegg makes stunningly clear the attraction of the drug that had him in its thrall, capturing in scene after scene the drama, tension, and paranoiac nightmare of a secret life–and the exhilarating bliss that came again and again until it was eclipsed almost entirely by doom. He also explores the shape of addiction, how its pattern–not its cause–can be traced to the past. Portrait of an Addict as a Young Man is an utterly compelling narrative–lyrical, irresistible, harsh, honest, and beautifully written–from which you simply cannot look away.

The Murder Room: the heirs of Sherlock Holmes gather to solve the world’s most perplexing cold cases

Thrilling, true tales from the Vidocq Society, a team of the world’s finest forensic investigators whose monthly gourmet lunches lead to justice in ice-cold murders Three of the greatest detectives in the world–a renowned FBI agent turned private eye, a sculptor and lothario who speaks to the dead, and an eccentric profiler known as “the living Sherlock Holmes”-were heartsick over the growing tide of unsolved murders. Good friends and sometime rivals William Fleisher, Frank Bender, and Richard Walter decided one day over lunch that something had to be done, and pledged themselves to a grand quest for justice. The three men invited the greatest collection of forensic investigators ever assembled, drawn from five continents, to the Downtown Club in Philadelphia to begin an audacious quest: to bring the coldest killers in the world to an accounting. Named for the first modern detective, the Parisian eugène François Vidocq-the flamboyant Napoleonic real-life sleuth who inspired Sherlock Holmes-the Vidocq Society meets monthly in its secretive chambers to solve a cold murder over a gourmet lunch. The Murder Roomdraws the reader into a chilling, darkly humorous, awe-inspiring world as the three partners travel far from their Victorian dining room to hunt the ruthless killers of a millionaire’s son, a serial killer who carves off faces, and a child killer enjoying fifty years of freedom and dark fantasy. Acclaimed bestselling author Michael Capuzzo’s brilliant storytelling brings true crime to life more realistically and vividly than it has ever been portrayed before. It is a world of dazzlingly bright forensic science; true evil as old as the Bible and dark as the pages of Dostoevsky; and a group of flawed, passionate men and women, inspired by their own wounded hearts to make a stand for truth, goodness, and justice in a world gone mad.

Cyber War: the next threat to national security and what to do about it

From the #1 bestselling author of “Against All Enemies” comes an explosive new book that exposes America’s burgeoning new cyber warfare capability and its vulnerabilities and documents the first skirmishes that have taken place in cyberspace.

The Unlikely Disciple: a sinner’s semester at America’s holiest university

As a student Kevin was eager for a term abroad – a break from the mind-numbing sameness of life at Brown University, one of the most liberal colleges in America. Kevin found the most foreign place he could in America’s backyard. Liberty University is the late Rev. Jerry Falwell’s fundamentalist Christian college for hardcore conservative Christians. The 10,000 students learn everything through a strict lens of Biblical literalism, every professor is a born-again Christian, the student code of conduct lays out a host of rules e.g. no witchcraft allowed and at spring break, they take a bus to Daytona Beach to convert the heathens. But Kevin did not go to poke fun at the students or the way of life there, far from it. He went there to try to better understand the people who are so similar and yet so different from him, to see if perhaps they have found a way to live that is more rewarding than his own. What begins as a journey to reveal what is actually going on at the nation’s largest Christian fundamentalist school ends up revealing more about Kevin than he could have possibly imagined.

Language

100 Words Every Middle Schooler Should Know

This reference helps students in grades six to eight and includes verbs, nouns, and adjectives. Each word has a definition and pronunciation, and appears with at least one quotation taken from a book that middle schoolers are familiar with.

Science

“At long last, a theory has emerged that addresses the foundation of reality logically, rationally, empirically, and completely–Null Physics. The universe it reveals doesn’t rely on unknowable precursors in the ancient, untestable past. The universe it reveals won’t collapse or grow old and die. Null Physics tells us why the universe exists, how the universe exists, and why it is the way it is”–Cover, p. 2.

Zoo Story: life in the garden of captives

“Animals Make Us Human” meets “An Inconvenient Truth” as a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist goes behind the scenes at one of the country’s most popular–and most controversial–destinations: a zoo.

Technology

The Carb Lover’s Diet: eat what you love, get slim for life

The editors of Health Magazine (and top nutrition scientists) have big news: Eating carbs is the best way to get and stay slim. Breakthrough research revealed in this book shows how certain carb-rich foods-especially those with the amazing natural ingredient called Resistant Starch-act as powerful metabolism boosters and appetite suppressants. Rather than making you fat and bloated, as decades of low-carb diet gurus claimed, CARBS make you thin. They shrink fat cells, especially in your belly; boost fat burning; increase muscle mass; curb cravings; keep you feeling full longer than other foods; control blood sugar, and lower cholesterol and triglycerides! Health Magazine, the expert when it comes to healthy living, takes this revolutionary new science and turns it into an easy-to-follow, real women-tested, dietitian-approved road map proven to melt off 10, 35, even 100 plus pounds forever. Our test kitchen chefs and registered dietitians also developed 85 delicious, simple recipes and foolproof meal plans that help you lose weight while you enjoy the foods you’ve craved for years. Phase 1 of the CarbLovers Diet eases you back into a world of yummy, satisfying meals and snacks, while dropping weight-especially belly fat-fast and permanently. Phase 2 is nothing short of life-changing: Dieters savor generous portions of their favorite foods (think steak and potato dinners, French toast for breakfast, sandwiches dripping with cheese, chocolate torte for dessert)-while their clothes get loose, their skin glows, their energy soars! Bottom line: CarbLovers shows you how to eat your favorite carb-filled foods-and helps you get thinner and happier than you ever imagined. We’ve included fun-to-follow eating rules, tricks and tips, grocery lists, and amazing recipes anyone can make, enjoy, and share with others. Don’t feel like cooking? No problem. We’ve got hundreds of quick bites, frozen foods and restaurant menu items too. Get ready to feel satisfied, happy, and oh-so-slim. Get ready for your fabulous new life as a CarbLover!

Now I See the Moon: a mother, a son, a miracle

Hall reveals the story behind her adoption of a Russian child with autism, and how that diagnosis led her to create The Miracle Project, through which she took on the seemingly impossible task of engaging children on the autistic spectrum to create and perform an original musical.

Colossus: Hoover Dam and the making of an American century

As breathtaking today as the day it was completed, Hoover Dam not only shaped the American West but helped launch the American century. In the depths of the Great Depression it became a symbol of American resilience and ingenuity in the face of crisis, putting thousands of men to work in a remote desert canyon and bringing unruly nature to heel. Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Michael Hiltzik uses the saga of the dam’s conception, design, and construction to tell the broader story of America’s efforts to come to grips with titanic social, economic, and natural forces. For embodied in the dam’s striking machine-age form is the fundamental transformation the Depression wrought in the nation’s very culture–the shift from the concept of rugged individualism rooted in the frontier days of the nineteenth century to the principle of shared enterprise and communal support that would build the America we know today. In the process, the unprecedented effort to corral the raging Colorado River evolved from a regional construction project launched by a Republican president into the New Deal’s outstanding–and enduring–symbol of national pride. Yet the story of Hoover Dam has a darker side. Its construction was a gargantuan engineering feat achieved at great human cost, its progress marred by the abuse of a desperate labor force. The water and power it made available spurred the development of such great western metropolises as Los Angeles, Phoenix, Denver, Las Vegas, Salt Lake City, and San Diego, but the vision of unlimited growth held dear by its designers and builders is fast turning into a mirage. In Hiltzik’s hands, the players in this epic historical tale spring vividly to life: President Theodore Roosevelt, who conceived the project; William Mulholland, Southern California’s great builder of water works, who urged the dam upon a reluctant Congress; Herbert Hoover, who gave the dam his name though he initially opposed its construction; Frank Crowe, the dam’s renowned master builder, who pushed his men mercilessly to raise the beautiful concrete rampart in an inhospitable desert gorge. Finally there is Franklin Roosevelt, who presided over the ultimate completion of the project and claimed the credit for it. Hiltzik combines exhaustive research, trenchant observation, and unforgettable storytelling to shed new light on a major turning point of twentieth-century history.

Gardening When It Counts: growing food in hard times

The Decline of Cheap Oil and the threat of harder times to come is prompting people to grow more food themselves. But currently popular intensive vegetable gardening methods depend on cheap oil, requiring high inputs of water, fertility and organic matter. Prior to the 1970s, home food growing used more land because wider plant spacing reduces the need for irrigation and requires lower levels of soil fertility to be productive – and well-spaced plants can be weeded rapidly and conveniently with hand tools while standing upright. But these efficient systems have been largely forgotten. Gardening When It Counts helps readers rediscover these traditional low-input gardening methods in their quest to produce healthy and affordable food.

The Sweet Life in Paris: delicious adventures in the worlds most glorious–and perplexing–city

Like so many others, David Lebovitz dreamed about living in Paris ever since he first visited the city in the 1980s. Finally, after a nearly two-decade career as a pastry chef and cookbook author, he moved to Paris to start a new life. Having crammed all his worldly belongings into three suitcases, he arrived, hopes high, at his new apartment in the lively Bastille neighborhood. But he soon discovered it’s a different world en France. From learning the ironclad rules of social conduct to the mysteries of men’s footwear, from shopkeepers who work so hard not to sell you anything to the etiquette of working the right way around the cheese plate, here is David’s story of how he came to fall in love with–and even understand–this glorious, yet sometimes maddening, city. When did he realize he had morphed into un vrai parisien? It might have been when he found himself considering a purchase of men’s dress socks with cartoon characters on them. Or perhaps the time he went to a bank with 135 euros in hand to make a 134-euro payment, was told the bank had no change that day, and thought it was completely normal. Or when he found himself dressing up to take out the garbage because he had come to accept that in Paris appearances and image mean everything. The more than fifty original recipes, for dishes both savory and sweet, such as Pork Loin with Brown Sugar-Bourbon Glaze, Braised Turkey in Beaujolais Nouveau with Prunes, Bacon and Bleu Cheese Cake, Chocolate-Coconut Marshmallows, Chocolate Spice Bread, Lemon-Glazed Madeleines, and Mocha-Creme Fraiche Cake, will have readers running to the kitchen once they stop laughing. The Sweet Life in Paris is a deliciously funny, offbeat, and irreverent look at the city of lights, cheese, chocolate, and other confections.

The I Hate to Cook Book

Philosopher’s Chowder. Skinny Meatloaf. Fat Man’s Shrimp. Immediate Fudge Cake. These are just a few of the beloved recipes from Peg Bracken’s classic I HATE TO COOK BOOK. Written in a time when women were expected to have full, delicious meals on the table for their families every night, Peg Bracken offered women who didn’t revel in this obligation an alternative: quick, simple meals that took minimal effort but would still satisfy. 50 years later, times have certainly changed – but the appeal of THE I HATE TO COOK BOOK hasn’t. This book is for everyone, men and women alike, who wants to get from cooking hour to cocktail hour in as little time as possible.

Ready for Dessert: my best recipes

Pastry chef David Lebovitz is known for creating desserts with bold and high-impact flavor, not fussy, complicated presentations. Lucky for us, this translates into showstopping sweets that bakers of all skill levels can master. In Ready for Dessert, elegant finales such as G teau Victoire, Black Currant Tea Cr me Br’l e, and Anise-Orange Ice Cream Profiteroles with Chocolate Sauce are as easy to prepare as comfort foods such as Plum-Blueberry Upside-Down Cake, Creamy Rice Pudding, and Cheesecake Brownies. With his unique brand of humor-and a fondness for desserts with “screaming chocolate intensity”-David serves up a tantalizing array of more than 170 recipes for cakes, pies, tarts, crisps, cobblers, custards, souffl s, puddings, ice creams, sherbets, sorbets, cookies, candies, dessert sauces, fruit preserves, and even homemade liqueurs. David reveals his three favorites: a deeply spiced Fresh Ginger Cake; the bracing and beautiful Champagne Gel e with Kumquats, Grapefruits, and Blood Oranges; and his chunky and chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies. His trademark friendly guidance, as well as suggestions, storage advice, flavor variations, and tips will help ensure success every time. Accompanied with stunning photos by award-winning photographer Maren Caruso, this new compilation of David’s best recipes to date will inspire you to pull out your sugar bin and get baking or churn up a batch of homemade ice cream. So if you’re ready for dessert (and who isn’t?), you’ll be happy to have this collection of sweet indulgences on your kitchen shelf-and your guests will be overjoyed, too.

Babushka’s Beauty Secrets: old world tips for a glamorous new you

Esthetician to the stars Ruder learned her time-tested beauty techniques from her Ukrainian grandmother. Now everyone can discover the all-natural, better-than-botox secrets the Hollywood stars use to shine on the red carpet.

What’s a Disorganized Person To Do?

The World Needs Your Kid: how to raise children who care and contribute, updated and revised

168 Hours: you have more time than you think

There are 168 hours in a week, and Vanderkam presents a new approach to getting the most out of them. She draws on her own experience and the stories of other successful people who have fulfilled their goals why allocating their time accordingly.

Literature

Bitch is the New Black

Meet Helena Andrews, sassy, single, smart, and, yes, a bitch-but Tina Fey said it best, bitch is the new black! When Helena Andrews heard this declaration on Saturday Night Live, her first reaction was How daaare you? But after a commercial break and some thought, she decided to poke at the stereotype that says “successful” and “bitch” are synonyms. Unafraid and frank, she comes to realize that being a bitch is sometimes the best way to be-except, of course, when it’s not. Bitch Is the New Black follows Andrews-sexy, single, and a self-described smart-ass-on her trip from kidnapped daughter of a lesbian to Washington, D.C., political reporter who can’t remember a single senator’s name. Told in Andrews’s singular voice, this addictive memoir explores the roller coaster of being educated and single while trying to become an “actual adult” and find love. In these candid yet heartfelt essays, she chronicles that ride from beginning to end: a childhood spent on an all-white island, escaping via episodes of The Cosby Show; being set up with Obama’s “body guy” Reggie Love by Maureen Dowd; and the shocking suicide of a best friend. Through it all, Andrews and her gang of girlfriends urge each other to “keep it moving.” But no one can stay strong all the time-not even the women we believe do so without trying. As Andrews says, “Despite the fact that the most recognizable woman in the United States is black, popular culture still hasn’t moved past the only adjective apparently meant to describe us- “strong.” She is also flawed, tired, naive, greedy, gutsy, frightened, and kind: secret sides that come out in honest detail here.

History, Geography and Biography

Female Nomad & Friends: tales of breaking free and breaking bread around the world

Rita Golden Gelman, author of Tales of a Female Nomad, celebrates the wonders and joy of cross-cultural connecting with this collection of stories and recipes from more than forty authors. She also includes anecdotes about her own further adventures. Happy reading-and bon apptit, selamat makan, buen provecho! Book jacket.

Beneath the Sands of Egypt: adventures of an unconventional archaeologist

Marcus of Umbria: what an Italian dog taught an American girl about love

Tired of laboring in city cubicles, Justine van der Leun sublets her studio apartment, leaves her magazine job, and moves to Collelungo, Italy, population: 200. There, in the ancient city center of a historic Umbrian village, she sets up house with the handsome local gardener she met on vacation only weeks earlier. This impulsive decision launches an eye-opening series of misadventures when village life and romance turn out to be radically different from what she had imagined. Love lost with the gardener is found instead with Marcus, an abandoned English pointer that she rescues. With Marcus by her side, Justine discovers the bliss and hardship of living in the countryside: herding sheep, tending to wild horses, picking olives with her adopted Italian family, and trying her best to learn the regional dialect. Not quite up to wild boar hunting, no good at gathering mushrooms, and no mamma when it comes to making pasta, she never quite fits in with the locals who, despite their differences, take her in as one of their own. The result is a rich, comic, and unconventional portrait about learning to live and love in the most unexpected ways.

Every Man in this Village is a Liar: an education in war

A shattering account of war and disillusionment from a young woman reporter on the front lines of the war on terror. A few weeks after the planes crashed into the World Trade Center on 9/11, journalist Megan K. Stack, twenty-five-year-old national correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, was thrust into Afghanistan and Pakistan, dodging gunmen and prodding warlords for information. From there, she traveled to war-ravaged Iraq and Lebanon and other countries scarred by violence, including Israel, Egypt, Libya, and Yemen, witnessing the changes that swept the Muslim world and laboring to tell its stories. Every Man in This Village Is a Liaris Megan K. Stack’s riveting account of what she saw in the combat zones and beyond. She relates her initial wild excitement and her slow disillusionment as the cost of violence outweighs the elusive promise of freedom and democracy. She reports from under bombardment in Lebanon; records the raw pain of suicide bombings in Israel and Iraq; and, one by one, marks the deaths and disappearances of those she interviews. Beautiful, savage, and unsettling, Every Man in This Village Is a Liaris a memoir about the wars of the twenty-first century that readers will long remember.

Seven Events that Made America America: and proved that the founding fathers were right all along

A conservative historian examines some of the pivotal, yet often ignored, moments that shaped our history. All students of American history know the big events that dramatically shaped our country. The Civil War, Pearl Harbor, the assassination of John F. Kennedy, and 9/11 are just a few. But there are other, less famous events that had an equally profound impact. Notable conservative historian Larry Schweikart takes an in-depth look at seven of these transformative moments and provides an analysis of how each of them spurred a trend that either confirmed or departed from the vision our Founding Fathers had for America. For instance, he shows how Martin Van Buren’s creation of a national political party made it possible for Obama to get elected almost two centuries later and how Dwight Eisenhower’s heart attack led to a war on red meat, during which the government took control over Americans’ diets. In his easy-to-read yet informative style, Schweikart will not only educate but also surprise readers into reevaluating our history.

In this remarkable book, the historian Jack Rakove offers a new and revealing perspective on the men who invented America. Much has been written about the military struggle that led to independence, but Rakove is far more concernedwith the intellectual one: the competing views of politics,war, diplomacy, and society that shaped the very idea of an American nation. Spanning the most crucial decades of thecountry’s birth, from 1772 to 1792, Revolutionaries uses the stories of famous (and not so famous) men to capture–in away no single biography ever could–the intensely creative period of the Republic’s founding. Each of his portraits brims with fascinating and fresh insights: Washington as a flawed tactician but expert manager, Jack Laurens as a slave trader’s son who developed a plan to recruit black soldiers, Jefferson as a powerful critic of Europe’s social order but a voracious consumer of its culture. Rakove shakes off accepted notions of these men as godlike visionaries. We see Madison, Hamilton, Adams,and others before they were fully formed leaders, before the Republic was effectively functioning. We catch them in the act of thinking about when and how to break with Britain, how to wage a war that often seemed impossible to win,what exactly the Constitution should say and in doing so we begin to understand, perhaps for the first time, how the country came to be and why the idea of America endures.

Right Star Rising: a new politics 1974-1980

On the face of it, the Ford-Carter years seem completely forgettable. They were years of weak presidential leadership and national drift. Yet, as Laura Kalman shows in this absorbing narrative history, the contours of our contemporary politics took shape during these years. This was the incubation period for a powerful movement on the right that was to triumph with Ronald Reagan’s election in 1980. These years also marked the coming of age of the social movements of the 1960s, as their causes moved from the streets to the courts for mediation. Supreme Court decisions on affirmative action and the scope of privacy rights had immense social and political impact. The nation experienced an energy crisis, a sharp economic downturn, and a collision with fundamentalism in Iran that set the terms for coming crises. Kalman’s navigation of this eventful political and social terrain is expert and riveting.

Not Even Past: Barack Obama and the burden of race

Barack Obama, in his campaign speech discussing race in America today, quoted William Faulkner: “The past isn’t dead and buried. In fact, it isn’t even past.” Now an award-winning historian examines the paradox of race in America and how the president intends to deal with it.

Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the rise and fall of the Comanches, the most powerful Indian tribe in American history

In the tradition of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, a stunningly vivid historical account of the forty-year battle between Comanche Indians and white settlers for control of the American West, centering on Quanah, the greatest Comanche chief of them all. S. C. Gwynne’s Empire of the Summer Moon spans two astonishing stories. The first traces the rise and fall of the Comanches, the most powerful Indian tribe in American history. The second entails one of the most remarkable narratives ever to come out of the Old West: the epic saga of the pioneer woman Cynthia Ann Parker and her mixed-blood son Quanah, who became the last and greatest chief of the Comanches. Although readers may be more familiar with the tribal names Apache and Sioux, it was in fact the legendary fighting ability of the Comanches that determined just how and when the American West opened up. Comanche boys became adept bareback riders by age six; full Comanche braves were considered the best horsemen who ever rode. They were so masterful at war and so skillful with their arrows and lances that they stopped the northern drive of colonial Spain from Mexico and halted the French expansion westward from Louisiana. White settlers arriving in Texas from the eastern United States were surprised to find the frontier being rolled backward by Comanches incensed by the invasion of their tribal lands. So effective were the Comanches that they forced the creation of the Texas Rangers and account for the advent of the new weapon specifically designed to fight them: the six-gun. The war with the Comanches lasted four decades, in effect holding up the development of the new American nation. Gwynne’s exhilarating account delivers a sweeping narrative that encompasses Spanish colonialism, the Civil War, the destruction of the buffalo herds, and the arrival of the railroads, a historical feast for anyone interested in how the United States came into being. Against this backdrop Gwynne presents the compelling drama of Cynthia Ann Parker, a lovely nine-year-old girl with cornflower-blue eyes who was kidnapped by Comanches from the far Texas frontier in 1836. She grew to love her captors and became infamous as the “White Squaw” who refused to return until her tragic capture by Texas Rangers in 1860. More famous still was her son Quanah, a warrior who was never defeated and whose guerrilla wars in the Texas Panhandle made him a legend. S. C. Gwynne’s account of these events is meticulously researched, intellectually provocative, and, above all, thrillingly told. Empire of the Summer Moon announces him as a major new writer of American history.

Walking Home: a traveler in the Alaskan wilderness, a journey into the human heart

In the spring of 2007, hard on the heels of the worst winter in the history of Juneau, Alaska, Schooler sets out on a solo journey into the Alaskan wilderness, traveling first by small boat across the formidable Gulf of Alaska, then on foot along one of the wildest coastlines in North America.

In a Heartbeat: sharing the power of cheerful giving

For the first time, the remarkable couple depicted in The Blind Side tells their own deeply inspiring story – First came the bestselling book, then the Oscar-nominated movie — the story of Michael Oher and the family who adopted him has become one of the most talked-about true stories of our time. But until now, Leigh Anne and Sean Tuohy have never told this astonishing tale in their own way and with their own words. For Leigh Anne and Sean, it all begins with family. Leigh Anne, the daughter of a tough-as-nails U.S. Marshal, decided early on that her mission was to raise children who would become “cheerful givers.” Sean, who grew up poor, believed that one day he could provide a home that would be “a place of miracles.” Together, they raised two remarkable children — Collins and Sean Jr. — who shared their deep Christian faith and their commitment to making a difference. And then one day Leigh Anne met a homeless African-American boy named Michael and decided that her family could be his. She and her husband taught Michael what this book teaches all of us: Everyone has a blind side, but a loving heart always sees a path toward true charity. Michael Oher’s improbable transformation could never have happened if Leigh Anne and Sean Tuohy had not opened their hearts to him. In this compelling, funny, and profoundly inspiring book, the Tuohys take us on an extraordinary journey of faith and love — and teach us unforgettable lessons about the power of giving.

Abigail Adams

The New York Times Book Review, Editor’s ChoiceAmerican Heritage, Best of 2009In this vivid new biography of Abigail Adams, the most illustrious woman of the founding era, Bancroft Award–winning historian Woody Holton offers a sweeping reinterpretation of Adams’s life story and of women’s roles in the creation of the republic. Using previously overlooked documents from numerous archives,Abigail Adamsshows that the wife of the second president of the United States was far more charismatic and influential than historians have realized. One of the finest writers of her age, Adams passionately campaigned for women’s education, denounced sex discrimination, and matched wits not only with her brilliant husband, John, but with Thomas Jefferson and George Washington. When male Patriots ignored her famous appeal to “Remember the Ladies,” she accomplished her own personal declaration of independence: Defying centuries of legislation that assigned married women’s property to their husbands, she amassed a fortune in her own name. Adams’s life story encapsulates the history of the founding era, for she defined herself in relation to the people she loved or hated (she was never neutral), a cast of characters that included her mother and sisters; Benjamin Franklin and James Lovell, her husband’s bawdy congressional colleagues; Phoebe Abdee, her father’s former slave; her financially naive husband; and her son John Quincy. At once epic and intimate, Abigail Adams, sheds light on a complicated, fascinating woman, one of the most beloved figures of American history.

Pearl Buck in China: journey to The Good Earth

One of the twentieth century’s most extraordinary Americans, Pearl Buck was the first person to make China accessible to the West. She recreated the lives of ordinary Chinese people in The Good Earth, an overnight worldwide bestseller in 1932, later a blockbuster movie. Buck went on to become the first American woman to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. Long before anyone else, she foresaw China’s future as a superpower, and she recognized the crucial importance for both countries of China’s building a relationship with the United States. As a teenager she had witnessed the first stirrings of Chinese revolution, and as a young woman she narrowly escaped being killed in the deadly struggle between Chinese Nationalists and the newly formed Communist Party. Pearl grew up in an imperial China unchanged for thousands of years. She was the child of American missionaries, but she spoke Chinese before she learned English, and her friends were the children of Chinese farmers. She took it for granted that she was Chinese herself until she was eight years old, when the terrorist uprising known as the Boxer Rebellion forced her family to flee for their lives. It was the first of many desperate flights. Flood, famine, drought, bandits, and war formed the background of Pearl’s life in China. “Asia was the real, the actual world,” she said, “and my own country became the dreamworld.” Pearl wrote about the realities of the only world she knew in The Good Earth. It was one of the last things she did before being finally forced out of China to settle for the first time in the United States. She was unknown and penniless with a failed marriage behind her, a disabled child to support, no prospects, and no way of telling that The Good Earth would sell tens of millions of copies. It transfixed a whole generation of readers just as Jung Chang’s Wild Swans would do more than half a century later. No Westerner had ever written anything like this before, and no Chinese had either. Buck was the forerunner of a wave of Chinese Americans from Maxine Hong Kingston to Amy Tan. Until their books began coming out in the last few decades, her novels were unique in that they spoke for ordinary Asian people “translating my parents to me,” said Hong Kingston, “and giving me our ancestry and our habitation.” As a phenomenally successful writer and civil-rights campaigner, Buck did more than anyone else in her lifetime to change Western perceptions of China. In a world with its eyes trained on China today, she has much to tell us about what lies behind its astonishing reawakening.

Talking to Girls About Duran Duran: one young man’s quest for love and a cooler haircut

Growing up in the eighties, you were surrounded by mysteries. These were the years of MTV and John Hughes movies, the era of big dreams and bigger shoulder pads. Like any teenage geek, Rob Sheffield spent the decade searching for true love and maybe a cooler haircut. Talking to Girls About Duran Duran is his tale of stumbling into adulthood with a killer soundtrack. Inept flirtations. Dumb crushes. Deplorable fashion choices. Girls, every last one of whom was madly in love with the bassist of Duran Duran. In his first book, the national bestseller Love Is a Mix Tape, Sheffield shared a heartbreaking true story of love and grief. With Talking to Girls About Duran Duran, he returns with a smart, funny, and emotionally pitch-perfect trip through the music and memories of the eighties. As a confused teenager stranded in the suburbs, mowing lawns, and playing video games, Rob had a lot to learn about women, love, music, and himself. But he was sure his radio had all the answers, whether he was driving an ice cream truck through Boston to “Purple Rain,” slam dancing to The Replacements, or pondering the implications of Madonna lyrics. From Bowie to Bobby Brown, from hair metal to hip-hop, he loved them all. Talking to Girls About Duran Duranis a journey through pop culture of an American adolescence that will remind you of your first crush, first car, and first kiss. But it’s not just a book about music. This is a book about moments in time, and the way we obsess over them through the years. Every song is a snapshot of a moment shaped the rest of your life. Whenever you grew up, and whatever your teenage obsessions, Talking to Girls About Duran Duran brings those moments to life.

Steinbrenner: the last lion of baseball

No owner has changed the landscape of sports more than New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner. Follow his life, from his early days in Cleveland to the fateful moment when he bought the Yankees, and the four tumultuous decades when his ruthless and free-spending tactics made him a lightning rod for controversy.

Uncharted TerriTORI

Welcome to Los Angeles, birthplace and residence of Tori Spelling. It’s not every Hollywood starlet whose name greets you on a Virgin Airways flight into la-la land. But Tori Spelling has come to accept that her life is a spectacle. Her name is her brand, and business is booming. Too bad when your job is to be yourself, you can’t exactly take a break. Tori finally has everything she thought she wanted – a loving family and a successful career – but trying to live a normal life in Hollywood is a little weird. With the irresistible wit, attitude, and humor that fans have come to love, the New York Times bestselling author of sTORI telling and Mommywood is back with more hilarious, heartwarming, and candid stories of juggling work, marriage, motherhood, and reality television cameras. Tori comes clean about doing her time on jury duty, stalking herself on Twitter, discovering her former 90210 castmates’ “I Hate Tori” club, contracting swine flu, and contacting Farrah Fawcett from the dead. Like many mothers, she struggles to find balance (Stars, they’re just like us!) – only most women don’t have to battle it out with paparazzi at the grocery store. She talks openly about the darker side of life in the spotlight: media scrutiny over her weight and her marriage to Dean McDermott, her controversial relationship with Dean’s ex-wife, and her unfolding reconciliation with her mother. Having it all isn’t always easy – especially when you’re a perfectionist – but with the help of her unconventional family and friends, an underwear-clad spiritual cleansing or two, and faith in herself, she’s learning to find her happy ending. Because when you’re Tori Spelling, every day brings uncharted terriTORI. ***Just when you thought sTORI time was over, the beloved Hollywood starlet has so much more to say. ***”My life has changed dramatically in the past several years. I married Dean; we moved several times; we had two children; we created a show that has gone into its fifth season on the air. I have love. I have a family. I have a home. I have work. It’s all I ever wished for. But trying to be a perfect wife, mother, and mini-mogul has its challenges, especially if, like me, you want to be perfect at all of them at the same time. ” – from uncharted terriTORI.